A missing landslide hazard area report followed by a fatal mud slide that wipes out expensive new homes in Washington's (fictional) Latouche County saddles sheriff's investigator Rob Neill with multiple problems in Simonson's pedestrian sequel to Buffalo Bill's Defunct
(2008). Rob has to deal with the slide's after-effects and injuries he receives helping with rescue efforts, as well as a murder case after one possible suspect in the LHA coverup is found dead and another disappears. County politics from Sheriff Mack McCormick's office to Madeline Thomas, principal chief of the (fictional) Klalos tribe, intricately tangled with liaisons financial and sexual, offer plenty of motives for the crime. Rob's love interest, librarian Meg McLean, lends support. The author does a good job evoking the beauty of the Washington-Oregon border area between Mount Saint Helens and Mount Hood, but despite a satisfactory resolution to the murder investigation, the epilogue is much too pat. (Sept.)
